A woman is believed to have spent up to 11 days trying to fight her way out of her coffin after being mistakenly buried alive.
In what can only be described as something out of most people’s nightmares, 37-year-old Rosangela Almeida dos Santos is believed to have desperately tried to escape the wooden casket she had been nailed into before being buried in Brazil.
Locals had reported hearing screams and banging coming from her grave in the Senhora Santana cemetery in Riachao das Neves – 11 days after she was buried.
The concerns led to her coffin being lifted out of the ground and reopened, with the heartbreaking moment captured on video, per The Independent.
Footage of the moment family members smashed open her grave was shared, in which people were seen touching dos Santos’s feet and commenting that she still felt warm. Her family says there was evidence she had tried to fight her way free.
Tragically, dos Santos had already died by the time her coffin was reopened on February 9, 2018, and despite being taken to hospital she was declared dead and reburied the following day.
People living near the cemetery had alerted dos Santos’s family of the chilling noises they were hearing from her grave, and when the coffin was opened her body was found to have turned within the casket.
According to reports from the Daily Mail, cotton wool which had been in the woman’s ears and nostrils had come out, and she had injuries on her hands and forehead from trying to battle her way out of the tomb.
Scratches and blood marks were also reportedly found within the coffin, and the nails which had sealed the coffin lid shut were also found to have been pushed upwards as dos Santos tried to escape.
She had been admitted to a hospital in northeast Brazil by her family after suffering from severe fatigue and was on anti-convulsant medications after having fainting spells since the age of seven.
Her death certificate stated that she had two cardiac arrests before dying of ‘septic shock’, so her family said their goodbyes at a wake that same evening before she was buried in a concrete tomb in her hometown the following day.
People living close to the cemetery reported hearing muffled screams during the night but initially believed that it was down to children playing pranks.
A neighbor reported hearing screams before two groans were heard and the noise stopped.
After dos Santos’s body was recovered, several people from the local area reportedly visited the graveyard to see her and verified that her body was in fact still warm.
The family believed that dos Santos – who was married but did not have any children – was declared dead in error after having been at the hospital for a week, and reported the incident to police.
Our thoughts remain with dos Santos’s family and loved ones.